Milton Friedman

"Friedman was the big influence here. [...] Friedman is a really gifted teacher plus a superb economist. He spent almost all his time on applying economics. He would start with some real world situation, some quote from newspaper, some Wall Street Journal editorial, some sentence. And then he would try and get into a class discussion."

"One thing all of us admired about Friedman's book on consumption was the way Friedman integrated the aggregate time-series evidence and cross-sectional survey evidence. He gave a unified explanation of very different samples in a single theoretical model."

"He's very influenced by Savage and by this Bayesian way of thinking about probabilities. So when I talk about people "knowing" a probability, he just can't reach that language."

"I don't give a good goddamn what Milton Friedman says. He's not running for re-election!"

"As a libertarian, Mr. Friedman advocated legalizing drugs and generally opposed public education and the state's power to license doctors, automobile drivers and others. He was criticized for these views, but he stood by them, arguing that prohibiting, regulating or licensing human behavior either does not work or creates inefficient bureaucracies."

"There is as an unearthly, mystical element in Friedman's thought. The mere existence of a stock of money somehow promotes expenditure. But insofar as he offers an intelligible theory, it is made up of elements borrowed from Keynes."

"It’s that the profession has gone very much to the right ideologically. And guess who was the most important person responsible for that … it was Milton Friedman, not Friedrich Hayek."

"Today we see how utterly mistaken was the Milton Friedman notion that a market system can regulate itself... Everyone understands now, on the contrary, that there can be no solution without government. The Keynesian idea is once again accepted that fiscal policy and deficit spending has a major role to play in guiding a market economy. I wish Friedman were still alive so he could witness how his extremism led to the defeat of his own ideas."

"Everybody loves to argue with Milton, particularly when he isn't there."

"Everything reminds Milton of the money supply. Well, everything reminds me of sex, but I keep it out of the paper."

""Verfolger und Verfolgte im Drogenkrieg haben in gewisser Weise ein gemeinsames Interesse. Den Verfolgten, den Drogenlieferanten und Vertreibern der Drogen sichert die Prohibition ein gutes Auskommen. Das gilt auch für die Verfolger. Ihre Etats werden laufend aufgestockt, die Gehälter erhöht, Ruhm und gute Karrieren sind ihnen sicher." :(Interview Der Spiegel,30.03.1992)"

"Wir haben ein System, das zunehmend Arbeit besteuert und Erwerbslosigkeit bezuschusst."

"Niemand gibt das Geld anderer Leute so sorgsam aus wie das eigene. Niemand geht mit den Ressourcen anderer so sorgsam um wie mit den eigenen. Wer also Effektivität und Effizienz möchte, wer sorgsame Verwendung gewährleisten will, der muss dies mittels Privateigentum tun."

"Mit einigen rühmlichen Ausnahmen, sind Geschäftsleute für die freie Marktwirtschaft im allgemeinen, aber dagegen wenn es um sie selbst geht."

"Ich bin nicht wirtschaftsfreundlich, ich bin für freie Marktwirtschaft, was etwas ganz anderes ist."

"Die soziale Verantwortung der Wirtschaft ist es ihre Profite zu vergrößern."